Washington does not share Ankara’s view, however, and has carried out joint operations with Kurdish YPG fighters, making considerable gains in Syria, including the recent seizure of the Syrian city of Manbij.
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“What Turkey focuses and insists on is that instead of exclusively the YPG forces, the operations must be conducted, as the core of the operatives, by the local people of the region, instead of the YPG”, Isik said in an interview in London.
Speaking to Al Jazeera on Wednesday, a senior Turkish government official said that “Syrians will continue to return to their country”.
When asked if ongoing USA cooperation with the Kurds would be a stumbling block, Erdogan said he didn’t consider it to be a problem, pointing to Turkey’s latest operation (Euphrates Shield), which has gone smoothly so far.
“Obama wants to do some things jointly concerning Raqqa”, Erdogan said, according to reports from Turkish media sources.
Responding to a question as to whether the USA has changed its stance on the PYD, Erdoğan said Turkey had not experienced any difficulty in cooperating with its partner during the Euphrates Shield operation. “But I’m sure I’ll be discussing that with [Turkey’s Defence] Minister [Fikri] Isik”, Carter said.
Erdogan told journalists aboard a plane as he returned from a G-20 meeting that the issue was brought up by U.S. President Barack Obama during the meetings in China. Even though both countries nominally oppose Islamic State and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the USA places a greater priority on defeating Islamic State.
“A Turkish involvement in any other form would be similar to those of other countries in the Syrian conflict”, Eisa said.
Turkey says such a “safe zone” would help stem the flood of Syrian refugees.
Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels expelled the Islamic State group from the last strip of territory it controlled along the Syrian-Turkish border on Sunday, effectively sealing the extremists’ self-styled caliphate off from the outside world, Turkey’s prime minister and a Syrian opposition group reported.
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Johnson on Wednesday used a newspaper column to back the High Negotiations Committee’s plan that calls for the departure within six months of Syrian President Bashar Assad, followed by a shift to constitutional rule and free elections. “We have always said that if we do not support local forces on the ground, if there is no land operation, it will not be possible to eliminate or even stop Daesh exclusively from the air”, he said. When the Turkish military recently took the town of Jarablus, ISIS forces withdrew without resistance, clearing the way for a clash between Turkish and Kurdish forces.
